31 Again the Jews picked up stones to stone him, 32 but Jesus said to them, "I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?"
33 "We are not stoning you for any good work," they replied, "but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God."
34 Jesus answered them, "Is it not written in your Law, 'I have said you are "gods" '? 35 If he called them 'gods,' to whom the word of God came—and Scripture cannot be broken— 36 what about the one whom the Father set apart as his very own and sent into the world? Why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said, 'I am God's Son'? 37 Do not believe me unless I do the works of my Father. 38 But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father." 39 Again they tried to seize him, but he escaped their grasp.
40 Then Jesus went back across the Jordan to the place where John had been baptizing in the early days. Here he stayed 41 and many people came to him. They said, "Though John never performed a sign, all that John said about this man was true." 42 And in that place many believed in Jesus.
Dig Deeper
Everyone hated her. She was, after all, perfect. She was a new student in town and she seemed to take over everything, though she was not pushy or arrogant about it. Within a matter of months, however, she had not only made the girl’s swim team, the gymnastics team and the track team, but she had won state championships in all of those sports. She was wildly popular with many of the students and was a favorite with the teachers, partly due to her 4.0 grade point average and her newly voted position as student council president. Yet, off to the side, there were many who hated her. Why did they hate her? Mostly because she was, in their eyes, perfect. Many people tend to dislike other people when they appear to be perfect. It’s a strange part of human nature. I have seen teams that are undefeated go into championship games and have many people cheer against them for the sole crime of being too good. We tend to feel threatened by people who can clearly do something that we can’t do.
The Jews, in that respect, were no different from most humans. They had been given the Law by God, something which in God’s eyes made them special. It set them apart from the rest of human kind, not because of their own ability but because of His grace and the opportunity that He had given them as possessors of God’s perfect law. Yet, right from the start, they failed to follow it. As Moses was being given the law, Aaron was down the mountain allowing God’s people to engage in unspeakable idolatry, and things never got much better after that. It had come to be accepted that God had generously given the Jewish people His law, but that it was completely impossible to perfectly keep and uphold that law. This was something that no human could truly do, which is why God gave atonement provisions in His law. He had called His people to be holy because that was His nature (Lev. 19:2), but everyone knew that that wasn’t actually possible. Suddenly, though, Jesus burst on the scene claiming that he came directly from the Father and could and was doing His will perfectly. How dare he? No one could do such a thing and to claim that they could, proved them to be worthy of hate, derision, and death. The one thing that most of the Jewish leadership never considered, was what if he was telling the truth?
In verse 30, Jesus’ assertion that he and the Father were one, was no small claim in the eyes of the Jews. The term that Jesus used for "one" is neuter not masculine, so Jesus is not claiming that they are one in identity or the same person, but rather, that they are one in unity and purpose. He has already claimed that he does the work of the Father, and now Jesus claims to be one with Him in unity and will. This was not only impossible in the eyes of the Jewish people but was an assertion that had crossed over far into the realm of blasphemy. No one could do God’s will perfectly and be completely united with Him. Psalm 8 had declared that God had made man and "crowned him with glory and honor. You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet." God had created man and given him lofty ideals and ability, but surely no man had or could live up to such a high place. They clearly heard, however, Jesus making just such claims.
Leviticus 24:16 states that "anyone who blasphemes the name of the LORD must be put to death. The entire assembly must stone him. Whether an alien or native-born, when he blasphemes the Name, he must be put to death." This judgment was to be carried out, however, only after a fair hearing and judgment brought against the accused. The Jews here were willing to enact the judgment of the law but apparently had no interest in first upholding its requirements of a fair hearing and trial. It’s interesting that many critics of Christianity and even many cultic sects of quasi-Christianity claim that Jesus was not divine and never made any such claims. The people who stood toe-to-toe with him, apparently didn’t think so. They understood that he was putting himself on an equal plane with God and was a mere man who was claiming to be God. When Jesus said that he and the Father were one, he was resolutely inserting himself into the most beloved of all Jewish prayers, the Shema from Deuteronomy 6:4, which states "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one." When Jesus declared that he and the Father were one, he was committing nothing short of the worst kind of blasphemy in the eyes of these Jews and he needed to suffer the consequences of the law for committing such a crime.
Weren’t they just following the law, though? Can we blame them? Jesus answers that question, first with a bit a scriptural logic, and then with a clear explanation of why they should have accepted his words rather than having rejected him as truth and instead declaring him to be a blasphemer. Jesus’ line of argument in verses 34-36 can be difficult to follow if we don’t comprehend the Jewish understanding of Psalm 82:6, the passage from which he quotes. Psalm 82:6-7 says, "I said, 'You are "gods"; you are all sons of the Most High.' But you will die like mere men; you will fall like every other ruler." Jews of Jesus’ day understood the words from this Psalm to be spoken by God to the Israelites at Mt. Sinai when they were given the law. God said that "they were gods" because in receiving and living according to the law, they would truly be holy and live like heavenly beings (they did not mean that humans were mini-gods or anything like that, but simply that God was showing them the high status that they would be emulating by following the law). But because they had sinned in worshiping the golden calf, God said that they were "mere men" who would suffer the fate of every other human embroiled in sin. The early church agreed with that assessment and argued that Jesus was the fulfillment of Psalm 82:6 and Psalm 8. He was the only human being who attained the lofty heights for which man, free from sin, was intended (they did not argue, we should note, that if men did not sin they would be just like Jesus. He was still, they were clear, the unique Son of God).
Jesus’ logic goes like this, then. If God, when he inferred the law on the Jews, could refer to them as "gods," then why should Jesus be charged with blasphemy if he, who was set apart by God Himself and sent into the world with a specific vocation, referred to himself rightly as God’s Son. Jesus had just used their own understanding of Scripture to demonstrate that they had no legitimate grounds for their charge of blasphemy. On this point, Jesus says, the Scripture cannot be broken. If a matter was laid out Scripturally, then for Jesus that made it authoritative, period. The irony of all of this was that during the very time when they were celebrating the cleansing and re-dedicating of the Temple, they were rejecting the one who had been set apart or dedicated by God to cleanse the world.
With his scriptural argument firmly in place, Jesus now makes a plain statement. They should not just take him at his word if he cannot back it up with any evidence. But he has. He has done the works of the Father. He was preaching the good news to the poor, restoring light to the blind (cf. Isa. 61:1-2); in short, he was doing the work of the Father, the sorts of things the prophets said that the Messiah would do. They didn’t need to believe him necessarily, all they needed to do was to believe the works. Then they would know and understand the perfect unity and mutual relationship between the Father and his Son. If they would drop their preconceived notions concerning the Messiah and just look at what he was doing through the eyes of the Father, they would see the mutual indwelling relationship between Jesus and the Father. This was simply too much for the Jews and they try to seize him again. John doesn’t necessarily demand that we see a miraculous escape by Jesus here, but simply enforces the reality that no one was going to harm him or take him before his appointed hour. His time had not yet come, but it was nearing.
At this point with the opposition of the Jerusalem Jews reaching a fevered pitch, Jesus withdrew across the Jordan to the place where John had been baptizing in the early days. Jesus had gone to Jerusalem, the place where we might have expected that God’s people would embrace and welcome him but they had instead tried to stone him. Here, though, in the remote parts of Jewish world, many came to him and believed.
Devotional Thought
Jesus was quite comfortable in being judged by his works rather than his words because he knew that they were perfectly aligned. Could the same be said of you? If people were to judge your stated beliefs by your actions, your works, and how you spend your time and resources, would they find continuity or would they find contradictions? Would you be as comfortable as Jesus was in being considered and judged by your works?
No comments:
Post a Comment